money

Well, Euros always kind of looked like Monopoly money anyway.

In France, 80 boxes of Monopoly will ship with real money in addition to the fake money needed to actually play the game. It's nice of them to still include the game money, but I don't think anyone would mind if they had to go buy a second box of Monopoly to both play the game and spend their free cash.

...and why it's unlikely anyone will actually win it.

Jeopardy! host Alex Trebek appeared on The Nerdist Podcast recently. It's a really interesting interview, and if you have an hour and a half to kill, it's a great way to do that. At one point host Chris Hardwick wondered what the theoretical maximum a player could win in one episode was, so we did the math.

"Hey, Dad? Why'd you unfriend me?"

Kids are expensive. Food. Clothes. Toys. $80,000 Facebook updates. That last one's not all that common, but it happened to one father/daughter team in Miami when an update from the daughter cost her father an $80,000 lawsuit settlement.

Man, tensions have sure risen between the incredibly wealthy and the entire rest of humanity lately, and some among the wealthy have taken to throwing out comparisons between their "struggles" and Nazi persecution. Because yeah, sure, that's reasonable. So, let science explain the phenomenon of out-of-touch rich dudes.

Fun with numbers! Fun with numbers! Fun with numbers!

We tend to use the term "Monopoly Money" to imply something is worthless, but is it really? Does Monopoly money have any real value? Well, no, obviously. It's paper money from a board game, but it's still a thing people buy, so it has to be worth something, right? Let's figure out the exchange rate of dollars to Monopoly money. For reasons.

Because why would anyone want an important fossil find to be in a museum, where it could be studied? It belongs by rights to the wealthy, because they are better than us.

A pair of fossils discovered in Montana -- a T-Rex or close relative and an unidentified triceratops relative -- could potentially teach paleontologists a great deal about their respective species. Since they're going up for auction later this week, though, there's a real possibility that researchers will never even get to see them.

And people say us New Yorkers are cynical.

What happens when you try to give people money for free? FatAwesome recently gave it a shot. Several harmless looking guys, each in an ill-fitting white top and khakis, apparently went to various locations in Boston, and held out cash, saying "Free money!" and other variations. The video taken shows that Bostonians are suspicious, to say the least.

Not all that glitters is gold

The Bank of England announced today that Jane Austen will be replacing Charles Darwin on the £10 note, making her the third woman to ever appear on British currency (other than a member of the royal family, naturally), behind Florence Nightingale and Elizabeth Fry. She's also the third artist (unless Wikipedia is steering me wrong), behind composer Edward Elgar and the Bard himself. This comes after protests that with the replacement of Elizabeth Fry with Winston Churchill, the only woman depicted on British banknotes would be the Queen. The bill also includes a quote from Pride and Prejudice, but I can imagine that it was difficult to resist making it "money is the best recipe for happiness."
Previously in Jane Austen

We get that money is a social construct, but is there even that much of it in the world?

Chris Reynolds is your average small-town Pennsylvania resident who uses PayPal to buy and sell vintage car parts on eBay. While a fun hobby, he never expected it to make him successful beyond his wildest dreams or anything -- so you can imagine his surprise when he received his monthly statement in the mail and found that PayPal had mistakenly credited him with approximately $92 quadrillion. Geez oh man, think all of the overpriced hair twigs you could buy on Etsy with that kind of money! Like, at least eight or nine very fancy, very overpriced twigs.

Not all that glitters is gold

This Intergalactic Exchange Bureau currency converter is a must have if you are a wizard trying to make it in the muggle world, have ever wondered how many galactic credits are in your bank, or have felt the need to discover if you are richer than a Lannister. Above you can see how much Harry won in the Triwizard Tournament, in US dollars. Head past the jump to see some more interesting conversions, and check out the sci-fi currency converter for yourself.